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2. FOOD NOT FIT FOR A PET by Dr Wendell O. Belfield, D.V.M. r Nhe most frequently asked question in my practice is, "Which commercial pet food do you recommend?" My standard answer is "None." I am certain that pet-owners notice changes in their animals after using different batches of the same brand of pet food. Their pets may have diarrhoea, increased flatulence, a dull hair coat, intermittent vomiting or prolonged scratching. These are common symptoms associated with com- mercial pet foods. In 1981, as Martin Zucker and I wrote How to Have a Healthier Dog, we discovered the full extent of negative effects that com- mercial pet food has on animals. In February 1990, San Francisco Chronicle staff writer John Eckhouse went even further with an exposé entitled "How Dogs and Cats Get Recycled into Pet Food". Eckhouse wrote: "Each year, millions of dead American dogs and cats are processed along with billions of pounds of other ani- mal materials by companies known as renderers. The finished product...tallow and meat meal...serve as raw materials for thou- sands of items that include cosmetics and pet food." Pet food company executives made the usual denials. But fed- eral and state agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, and medical groups, such as the American Veterinary Medical Association and the California Veterinary Medical Association (CVMA), confirm that pets, on a routine basis, are rendered after they die in animal shelters or are disposed of by health authorities—and the end product frequently finds its way into pet food. Government health officials, scientists and pet food executives argue that such open criticism of commercial pet food is unfound- ed. James Morris, a professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine at Davis, California, has said, "Any products not fit for human consumption are very well sterilised, so nothing can be transmitted to the animal." Individuals who make such statements know nothing of the meat and rendering business. For seven years I was a veterinary meat inspector for the US Department of Agriculture and the State of California. I waded through blood, water, pus and faecal material, inhaled the fetid stench from the killing floor and listened to the death cries of slaughtered animals. Prior to World War II, most slaughterhouses were all-inclusive; that is, livestock was slaughtered and processed in one location. There was a section for smoking meats, a section for processing meats into sausages, and a section for rendering. After World War II, the meat industry became more specialised. A slaughter- house dressed the carcasses, while a separate facility made the sausages. The rendering of slaughter waste also became a sepa- rate speciality—no longer within the jurisdiction of federal meat inspectors and out of the public eye. To prevent condemned meat from being rerouted and used for human consumption, government regulations require that meat be "denatured" before removal from the slaughterhouse and shipment to rendering facilities. In my time as a veterinary meat inspector, we denatured with carbolic acid (a potentially corrosive disinfec- tant) and/or creosote (used for wood-preservation or as a disinfec- tant). Both substances are highly toxic. According to federal meat inspection regulations, fuel oil, kerosene, crude carbolic acid and citronella (an insect repellent made from lemon grass) are all approved denaturing materials. 3. A LOOK INSIDE A RENDERING of the renderer's wastes came from small A 1991 USDA report states that PLANT markets and slaughterhouses. Today, "approximately 7.9 billion pounds of meat by Gar Smith thanks to the proliferation of fast-food and bone meal, blood meal and feather restaurants, nearly half the raw material is meal [were] produced in 1983". Of that Risse has been called "the silent kitchen grease and frying oil. amount, 34 per cent was used in pet food, industry". Each year in the US, 286 —_ Recycling dead pets and wildlife into 34 per cent in poultry feed, 20 per cent in rendering plants quietly dispose of animal food is "a very small part of the pig food and 10 per cent in beef and dairy more than 12.5 million tons of dead ani- business that we don't like to advertise," cattle feed. mals, fat and meat wastes. As the public Valley Proteins’ President, J. J. Smith, told Transmissible spongiform encephalopa- relations watchdog newsletter PR Watch City Paper. The plant processes these ani- thy (TSE) carried in pig- and chicken-laden observes, renderers "are thankful that most mals as a "public service, not for profit," foods may eventually eclipse the threat of people remain blissfully unaware of their Smith said, since "there is not a lot of pro- "mad cow disease". The risk of household existence”. tein and fat [on pets]..., just a lot of hair pet exposure to TSE from contaminated pet When City Paper reporter Van Smith you have to deal with somehow." food is more than three times greater than visited Baltimore's Valley Proteins render- According to City Paper, Valley the risk for hamburger-eating humans. ing plant last summer, he found that the Proteins "sells inedible animal parts and (Gar Smith is Editor of Earth Island "hoggers" (the large vats used to grind and rendered material to Alpo, Heinz and Journal.) filter animal tissues prior to deep-fat-fry- Ralston-Purina". Valley Proteins insists ing) held an eclectic mix of body parts that it does not sell "dead pet by-products" ranging from "dead dogs, cats, raccoons, to pet food firms since "they are all very possums, deer, foxes [and] snakes" to a sensitive to the recycled pet potential". "baby circus elephant" and the remains of Valley Proteins maintains two production Bozeman, a Police Department quarter- lines—one for clean meat and bones and a horse that "died in the line of duty". second line for dead pets and wildlife. In an average month, Baltimore's pound However, Van Smith reported, "the protein hands over 1,824 dead animals to Valley material is a mix from both production Proteins. Last year, the plant transformed lines. Thus the meat and bone meal made 150 millions pounds of decaying flesh and at the plant includes materials from pets kitchen grease into 80 million pounds of and wildlife, and about five per cent of that —_ Barrels filled with euthanised dogs and cats commercial meat and bone meal, tallow product goes to dry-pet-food manufactur- ait transfer to a Baltimore rendering plant. and yellow grease. Thirty years ago, most ers..." (Photo credit:; Michelle, Gienow. Gity/Faper) 18 - NEXUS DECEMBER 1996 - JANUARY 1997